The trio jumped to their feet, and all started running as fast as they could in the opposite direction from the edge of the forest. Blake took the lead. To Emma and Steven, he seemed to have a better grasp of their surroundings and the pair just blindly followed as they ran for their lives.

Blake heard a cracking sound, just behind him, it was closely followed by a shriek. He spun around to find that one of the faceless creatures had caught up with them. It had jumped through the undergrowth to their right and crashed straight into Emma.

Steven had immediately tried to help his wife, but he wasn’t able to pull the creature off her by himself. He was able to keep it from biting down into her flesh, but that was about all.

Blake pulled his knife from its sheath, quickly crossed the distance between them and plunged it into the creature’s back. It let out an ear shattering cry. The sound almost threw Blake, but as the creature arched its back and turned to the threat behind it, he returned to his senses. Pulled out the knife and plunged it back into the creature again and again. It’s disgusting black blood was pouring from the wounds. As the creature fell limp, Blake and Steven pushed it off Emma.

Steven quickly rushed to his wife, he knelt down beside her and began trying to get her back to her feet. “Are you okay? You aren’t injured anywhere, are you?”

She shook her head and took her husband’s hand as he helped her to her feet. “No, I’m fine just a little shaken up.”

Blake was nervously staring back in the direction of the meadow. “I hate to rush you, but we need to run. More of those things are coming!”

Once on her feet Emma took a moment to look at the thing that had just tried to take her life. It was now lying lifeless in a pool of its own dark blood. Its faceless head still with its huge mouth full of rows of teeth still yawning open. “It really isn’t human!”

Steven turned to Blake. “What are those things?”

“I have no idea!” He glanced around. “Look, we really need to move.”

Steven nodded. “Right.” He took his wife’s hand. “Come on.”

Seeing the pair were ready to move again, Blake turned to run. It was clear ahead, he pushed forward… He had managed to take two steps. He’d heard nothing approach, it was the searing pain in his side that was the first sign something wasn’t right. That and he had been forced to his side, the trees turned on their ends in his vison as he crashed down into the floor. Where did that even come from?

The fall had taken the wind out of him, but he knew he had to fight, or this was going to be it. He struggled to get back up to his feet, but the faceless creature was already upon him. It pinned his legs as he tried to stand and pushed him back to the ground with a thud.

“Ah fuck.”

Blake reached for the knife on his belt, whilst flailing his legs in a vain attempt to keep the creature at bay. All the while he could hear the shouts and screams coming from Emma and Steven. I’ve got to get myself out of this and help the others. He reached the handle of his knife and begun to slip it out the sheath when a sensation of heat and then pain shot down his other arm. The shock made him lose grip of the knife and it fell to the floor. He looked just to see it roll out of reach.

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He turned back to just in time to see the second faceless creature let his arm fall from its mouth. He couldn’t take his eyes of it, and blindly reached for the knife he had dropped. The creature leapt toward his face. This is it.

The air split with a crack. Boom.

It was the sound of small arms fire and it was close. The creature fell to the floor mere millimetres from his face, its blood rained down on him. There was another bang and the first creature fell on his legs.

There were two more bangs as Blake kicked the creature off his legs and slowly got to his feet, turning to the source of the gunfire. He instantly recognised the woman standing there. “Eliana! I thought you’d left!”

“I had, but for some reason I had to turn back…” She flicked the hair that had slipped down out of her eyes. “Don’t ask me why. Are those two, ok?” She pointed to Emma and Steven.

They were getting themselves up from the forest floor. There was a dead faceless creature lying lifeless next to each of them.

“I’ll check!” Blake ran over whilst clutching his arm.

Not what I meant. Seeing Blake’s concern for the pair she holstered her gun for the moment and hurried over to help. She stopped just behind them, placed her bag on the ground and began rustling around inside it as she looked for her first aid kit.

Blake stopped just short of the pair. “Are either of you hurt?”

They were both pulling themselves up from the floor and brushing themselves off. Steven rushed to Emma, grabbed her, and held her tight, before checking her over for wounds. He then looked to Blake. “Apart from a few scratches here and there, it seems we’re both ok somehow.”

Both Emma and Steven had taken some damage during the attack, but from a quick glance Eliana could tell that Blake was the most injured. The creature had really gone to town on his arm before it gave up. To make matters worse, it was the same arm that he’d injured in his previous encounter with the creatures.

Eliana pulled her first aid supplies out of the bag and rushed to Blake’s side. “Here let me look at that.” She reached out to his arm.

“Awh.” Blake winced as she took hold of his arm.

“Sorry, but this needs immediate attention.” She quickly got to work, cleaning the wound and then trying to stop the bleeding with the few bandages she had left.

Emma and Steven were nervously checking through the trees whilst Eliana worked away, clearly worried that more of those creatures would soon be coming their way.

Emma finally spoke up. “Err sorry to interrupt… But do you think we’re safe here?”

Eliana looked up. “I doubt we’re safe anywhere in this place… But we’re probably okay for a little while here. I was watching them come in from up in the trees, most ran along the far end of the meadow. Looked as if something got their attention. Still, we probably shouldn’t hang around here for much longer.”

Eliana tied off the bandages on Blakes arm. She got back to her feet, picking up her bag as she did. She reached inside and pulled out a couple of packets. She passed them to Blake. “Here, you’ll want to take these.”

Blake looked a little confused. “What are they?”

“Antibiotics and strong painkillers. You’re going to want to take both.”

“Right.” He quickly checked the backs of the packets, before taking out a bottle of water and then washed back a couple of each of the pills.

Emma looked a little surprised as she watched on. “Wow, you certainly did come prepared! That’s pretty lucky.”

Eliana glanced back over her shoulder. “I didn’t bring anything here, but I was lucky to find it for sure.”

“Just where did you find it?” Emma sounded surprised.

“In the bags that are lying around all over the place.”

“Bags? I’ve not seen any…”

“You will…” Eliana glance around, as if she’d heard something. “I think, if everyone is alright, we should probably get moving.”

The four shared quick glances.

Blake got back to his feet. “You’re right, we shouldn’t wait around here for the rest of them to find us. Let’s get out of here.” He looked to Eliana. “We’ll let you lead the way.”

“Alright.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and waved. “Follow me.”

Just as the group of four started to leave, they were frozen to the spot.

The air had almost split. An extremely loud and extremely high-pitched noise burst the near silence of their surroundings. It was ear piercing. They each rushed to place their hands over their ears, in a vain attempt to dampen the extreme sound. It was impossible to tell where the noise was coming from, in fact, it seemed to be coming from all around.